The fan is not noisy for me on my i7 quad 2.6. When it is pushing the cpu at 100% the fan will run at max 5500rpm but it is not that bad. Having said that, if you are sleeping in the same room or the mini is very close to you then the full rpm on the fan could be irritating after a while. The 2012s have a newer fan design to the 2011 so they are quieter.

The fan is not noisy for me on my i7 quad 2.6. When it is pushing the cpu at 100% the fan will run at max 5500rpm but it is not that bad. Having said that, if you are sleeping in the same room or the mini is very close to you then the full rpm on the fan could be irritating after a while. The 2012s have a newer fan design to the 2011 so they are quieter.

The fan is not noisy for me on my i7 quad 2.6. When it is pushing the cpu at 100% the fan will run at max 5500rpm but it is not that bad. Having said that, if you are sleeping in the same room or the mini is very close to you then the full rpm on the fan could be irritating after a while. The 2012s have a newer fan design to the 2011 so they are quieter.

The fan is not noisy for me on my i7 quad 2.6. When it is pushing the cpu at 100% the fan will run at max 5500rpm but it is not that bad. Having said that, if you are sleeping in the same room or the mini is very close to you then the full rpm on the fan could be irritating after a while. The 2012s have a newer fan design to the 2011 so they are quieter.

hmm so loud really but what do you expect guess, impossible for total silence with an i7 quad core

Did you read the comments on the YouTube video? The dude just exported 100-150 minutes of 1080P video.
If your highly tasking the processor the fan can ramp up. Mac minis have small fans so when they do need to move air they have to do it at a high RPM.

There can be a lot of other variables involved. Ambient temp, hard drive installed, RAM installed, tasks performed. You mentioned that you've never heard the fan on your 2009 mini, so there is even less chance that you will ever hear the fan on the new model.

The fan is not noisy for me on my i7 quad 2.6. When it is pushing the cpu at 100% the fan will run at max 5500rpm but it is not that bad. Having said that, if you are sleeping in the same room or the mini is very close to you then the full rpm on the fan could be irritating after a while. The 2012s have a newer fan design to the 2011 so they are quieter.

hmm so loud really but what do you expect guess, impossible for total silence with an i7 quad core

Did you read the comments on the YouTube video? The dude just exported 100-150 minutes of 1080P video.
If your highly tasking the processor the fan can ramp up. Mac minis have small fans so when they do need to move air they have to do it at a high RPM.

There can be a lot of other variables involved. Ambient temp, hard drive installed, RAM installed, tasks performed. You mentioned that you've never heard the fan on your 2009 mini, so there is even less chance that you will ever hear the fan on the new model.

Yes bit of an extreme example, anyway I've waited so long so I will pobably wait for the update later in the year...

Keep in mind that it was recorded with a phone as well. Whenever you are picking up air movement with a microphone it always sounds worse than it is. Plus who puts there head at the back of their computer after transcoding 150 minutes of 1080P video. 2 minutes later and the computer would have been back to normal operating state.

I just watched the video and the guy comments on it, as his encoding sessions ends he says "just finished processing" and the mini immediate ramps down to quiet again and he pats it on the lid saying good job mac mini.

I can't say I have ever heard mine ram up, even when I first bought it and spent a couple of days using it to rip and encoding all my DVDs. I left the mini ripping and encoding and I worked away at the side of it on my iMac.

I have to say my Mac's are the quietest computers I've ever own. With my old PC's it sounded like I was in a wind tunnel the fans were noisy all the time. _________________Phil

The fan is not noisy for me on my i7 quad 2.6. When it is pushing the cpu at 100% the fan will run at max 5500rpm but it is not that bad. Having said that, if you are sleeping in the same room or the mini is very close to you then the full rpm on the fan could be irritating after a while. The 2012s have a newer fan design to the 2011 so they are quieter.

hmm so loud really but what do you expect guess, impossible for total silence with an i7 quad core

No... It's not loud? It's actually very quiet most of the time. It is only when the temp is over 90-95 that you hear the fan. Even then it is ok. I have 5 macs (1 core 2 duo, 2 i5s and 2 i7s). They are all similar in noise when the CPU is maxed out.

I read about how the fan kicks in when the 2012 mac mini is being put to full use, so how loud is it really as with my 2009 version I have never heard the fan !

The 2012 Mac-mini is my first mini, so I can't compare the fan noise to previous models. That said, when the graphics card gets taxed (watching movie or working on large files in Photoshop), the fan noise gets very loud. I can even hear it while wearing closed headphones and while talking on Skype.